Conventional rotary seals are employed in a wide variety of environments and settings, such as for example, in mechanical apparatuses, to provide a fluid-tight seal. The sealing assemblies are usually positioned about a rotating shaft or rod that is mounted in and protrudes from a stationary mechanical housing. Polymer or rubber seals are generally not present in split configurations.
A seal may be deployed upon equipment. As the equipment ages, several problems may develop. For example, as a rotating shaft ages, the radially outer surface of the shaft (i.e., the surface of the shaft presented to the sealing surface of the seal) may become inconsistent, pitted, pocked, damaged, or otherwise made uneven. If the sealing surface of a seal assembly cannot conform to the uneven surface of the shaft, the seal assembly will not be capable of maintaining a tight seal with the shaft.
Furthermore, the shaft may not be rotating perfectly concentrically within the equipment. For example, the centerline of the equipment bore and the shaft may not be coincident during operation. The concentricity of the shaft is indicated by the Total Indicated Runout (TIR) of the shaft. In real-world applications, the TIR of a shaft is typically not zero; that is, the shaft will move radially towards and away from the seal as the shaft rotates. If the seal is unable to move radially with the shaft, the sealing performance of the seal assembly is degraded. As a result, many conventional seals do not perform adequately and wear out prematurely.
The present application addresses these and other problems, as described in more detail below.